[Server-devel] stability of XS 0.5

[Martin Langhoff]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 8:24 PM, Anna <aschoolf at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 12:07 PM, Martin Langhoff
> <martin.langhoff at gmail.com> wrote:
> I followed the instructions here for Fedora 9, but using the XS 0.5 install
> CD instead.
> http://www.reactivated.net/weblog/archives/2008/08/regular-linux-desktops-on-the-xo/
>
> Also, in the kernel config file in /XO-alt-distro/kernel/2.6.25.15-XOaltF9-1

That's the main thing that worries me - the kernel. I'd like to use a
standard F9 kernel -- when I talk about "backporting cleverness", it's
about applying some fixes that IIRC Jeremy Katz applied to the initrd
that F10 carries.

We need a standard Fedora kernel because

 - we don't need all the latest cleverness in power saving
 - we need as many drivers for network and usb kit as possible
 - we don't have easy access to kernel folk - Deepak is kept busy with
laptop concerns

> I enabled the bonding module before I ran the sd_fixup script.  At the end,
> it failed to do the chroot thing, so I looked at the chroot.sh script in
> /XO-alt-distro/distro/fedora-9 and then manually did:
>
> sed -i "/VolGroup00/d" /media/disk/etc/fstab
> cp olpc.fth /media/disk/boot

Alternatively, you can use a more conventional disk partitioning scheme :-)

> I don't have a USB to ethernet adaptor, so I downloaded and put the rpm in
> /root before I disconnected the 8 GB SD card.  I booted up on an XO and did
> the usual XS stuff, including installing the rpm, and got what looked like a
> working XS, with the exception of failure to load the extra iptables
> modules.  I booted up a regular XO, got an IP on msh0, and then successfully
> registered to the XSXO.  Moodle looked like it was working on the XSXO, but
> when I go to http://schoolserver/moodle, all I get on the regular XO is a
> bunch of error messages related to scorm.

Overall, promising results :-) The iptables modules perhaps aren't
included. That Moodle's failed is odd! /var/log/moodle/ will have an
installation log that probably tells us what went wrong, can you post
it.

> I haven't tried ejabberd yet, though I suspect the little XSXO might be a
> little underpowered to handle that with too many users.

It should cope with 20~30 users. Simultaneous use with Moodle might
need further tuning, but it can be made to work.

> At any rate, this needs testing

definitely. But that's a great start :-)

> associated with an XS, this might be a solution.  Boa does work on a regular
> XO, but I don't know if that would work within a simple mesh environment.

We're still a bit tied to apache, can boa work with mod_python's low
level hooks?

> I bet this would even work on an XO with a broken screen if it was otherwise
> going to go unused, as you could either ssh in to do stuff or simply swap
> the SD card temporarily.  Using ssh might be a better idea anyway, as the
> console display is very, very small.

Yeah. OTOH, I woudn't want to promote cannibalising the XS ;-) we'll
see where this leads...

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff